Sam's 7th "Video Game" Birthday Party - Presents

After completing all of the other activities in 85 minutes, it was time to crack open the presents. We started bringing them in to Sam as everyone was eating cake, since the parents would be arriving at any moment.

One of the good things about having 12 guests at your party is you get lots of presents. Sam was pleased to get a cool sweatshirt, more Tech Deck stuff, a fingerbike, some Beyblades, and lots of other stuff.

Like the rest of the party, opening the presents was pretty much a mass of humanity at times:

Slowly the chaos lightened as parents arrived one by one. And then at 3:00, when everyone had left, it was off to Pete's basketball game.

Sam's 7th "Video Game" Birthday Party - Video Games

Finally, it was time to get to the essence of the party - playing some video games. The group divided into 4 sub-groups of 4 and took turns simultaneously playing Super Smash Bros. upstairs and Crash Bash downstairs. These games were selected since they each support 4-player simultaneous action.

As expected, this was the most chaotic part of the party. But it went about as well as could be expected. After about 20 minutes of video games, there were still 10 minutes left for cake and presents.

Upstairs:

Downstairs:

Sam's 7th "Video Game" Birthday Party - Obstacle Course

The Obstacle Course is a staple of parties at Sam's house. At Sam's video game party, it consisted of performing the following:

1. Run to the dart shooting arena

2. Shoot a dart, knocking over 2 wooden blocks

3. Make a basket in the basketball hoop

4. Put one pool ball into each pocket

5. Grab the key on the treadmill

6. Jump up and grab a "power-up"

7. Jump over the couch

8. Unlock the treasure chest and take a prize (10 seconds max)

The Obstacle Course was rather chaotic, but everyone finished it successfully with no injuries. The hardest part was re-setting the course before the next participant. With help from Pete, Mason, Mom, and Dad, the crew was able to pull it off.

After the last participant had completed the Obstacle Course, Mom whispered to Dad that he should lock up the treasure chest and hide the key. To which he replied "already done".

Sam's 7th "Video Game" Birthday Party - Name The Game

After pizza, it was time to head down to the basement for "Name That Game" and then the Obstacle Course. "Name That Game" was a lot of fun. Sam went first. He drew a game card (screen shot) from the bucket and then taped the game up next to it's name on the poster. Then he picked the name of the person who would go next. If someone could not identify their game, they could ask the others for help. Everyone correctly taped all of the games to the poster:

Sam's 7th "Video Game" Birthday Party - Treats

The treats at Sam's video game party were pizza, cake, ice cream, and lollipops (to take home). Apparently Sam determined this year that "it's not a birthday party without pizza".

Above is Sam's awesome cake, prepared by Mom. Sam originally said he wanted all chocolate frosting. Then he decided on Saturday that he wanted vanilla frosting on top and chocolate on the sides. However, Pete later convinced him to go back to chocolate on top, since that would provide a more realistic interpretation of the arcade game and also give better visibility to the white dots (M&Ms). Sam placed the white dots shown on the cake.

Sam also informed us about a few things too late during the party, including that he wanted pepperoni pizza and that he wanted the piece of cake with PacMan on it.

Above, the boys enjoy their pizza. Note the painters tape in each seat with the name of who sits there. With the 15-2 child adult ratio at this party, nothing could be left to chance.

Above, Sam, Jackson, and Dylan are seen later in the party eating a combination of cake, ice cream, and pizza. Sam ended up a bit isolated during the eating portions of the party. This is partly because he insisted on sitting next to Jaylan, but Jaylan never showed up. Sam even bought a birthday present for Jaylan, when he learned that Jaylan was coming to his party and was not going to have a party of his own.

Sam's 7th "Video Game" Birthday Party - Arrival Game

Pete and Dad worked for several hours one Sunday on the "arrival" game, which would require filling in the names of 30 famous video game characters based on a picture (Sam wanted a special one without pictures, but the picture of Mario did not want to go away) and description. The last page would give the names in random order, to help those who were not as familiar with the names. The handout pages are shown below:

This activity went surprisingly well, and the guests sat quietly and filled out their sheets while pizza was served.

Sam's 7th "Video Game" Birthday Party

Saturday was Sam's 7th birthday. He selected Red Robin for his birthday dinner, and sat mouth agape when they brought him a big sundae and sang to him. Today was Sam's party.

Sam went through a variety of ideas while planning for his 7th birthday party. Originally, he wanted to do something at the bounce house. This morphed into having a party at the community center. But we finally extracted that he wanted to do a video game party - which of course meant a party at home. This was going to be a record in chaos, with Mom and Dad the only adults available to help with the party. Things were further complicated when Sam could only scale his invitee list back no further than his closest 12 friends. Adding in Sam, Pete, and Pete's friend, this would be a total of 15 (12 6-7 year olds, 1 8 year old, 1 9 year old, and 1 10 year old). And yes, everyone Sam invited responded that they would be in attendance. The final seating arrangement would be 5 at the kitchen table, 4 at a card table, and 6 at the kitchen bar. We also discovered the night before the party that half of the folding chairs were missing.

Pictured above, Mom and Sam work on preparing the cake and lollipops for the party.

Pictures

The pictures of the boys over the whiteboard were getting pretty out of date, so Mom took the boys to get some updated pictures. They came back with 88 pictures. So I figure, 4 minutes per picture, including tantrums and outtakes, they must have been at that place for about 6 hours.

Learning

Who said nothing gets taught in the public schools?

On Friday, Pete taught Mrs. LaFrankie's husband how to solve a Rubik's Cube in under 5 minutes.

Foster's

Pete and Sam occasionally have dinner at Foster's Grille on Thursday nights. This is the night that kids eat free (including drinks) - a pretty good deal. The whole family can eat for about $18. In the summer, they sit outside. One night in July, they even saw Brandon there. This is one of the few places where Sam will eat grilled cheese. Recently, he even started eating the cheeseburger there, and some fries.

The last trip to Foster's was an especially good one. First, Sam actually played the dinosaur rock-paper-scissors game without getting upset. Then Sam and Pete both won dogs from the crane game. Sam's dog said "Bark Off" on his shirt, and Pete's said "Beware of Me". Pete also worked on his sentences for homework and solved his Rubik's Cube a few times.

Upon returning home, it was time to have some Halloween candy for dessert.

Youtube

Sam has been making a splash on Youtube. You can click here to see his channel and watch some of his videos. So far he has been focusing on a series of instructional videos for his Tech Deck finger skateboards. He created and customized the whole page, including a custom background that he created in MS Paint (this was originally Pete's idea). He even has some comments from his friends.

Make sure you subscribe to Sam's channel and leave lots of comments!

Box

What is the significance of this box on the floor of Pete's room? Only that Sam is sleeping under it with a small blue pillow and his hedgehog, Steve.

Upon Closer Inspection

They may look like best friends, but if you look more carefully you will see that just moments earlier, in a fit of rage, Pete bit off a chunk of Sam's tongue, which he still has stuck between his teeth.

Head Up

Sam -

Whatever you do in life, never stop jumping and never look down. You are going to change the world.

Merrywood Zoo Trip

One day last August, Dad took Pete and Sam to the National Zoo, along with the moms and other kids on the street. It was very hot. As far as the kids were concerned, they needed to traverse up and enough hills such that their obligation was satisfied and they could get some Dippin' Dots.

The group:

Brain sizes represented in the primate house:

Lunch (all the way back at the lower parking lot):

The mist areas provided some fleeting relief:

Finally, some Dippin ' Dots:

Husky Helper

Pete has been leaving early for school so he can catch the first bus and perform his duties as a Husky Helper. He walks by himself down to the bus stop at the top of Rosetta. We took this picture one mid-October morning of Pete walking by himself down the street, just as the sun was rising over Eastern Virginia and Washington DC.

That Explains It

Dad had been wondering about the mysterious damage to the recycling bin. Until he found this video one day on the digital camera.

Surely these videos will come in handy one day to show to the doctors so they can re-construct, for example, how Pete got impaled on the mailbox post.

Missing

The summer of 2010 had a few ups and downs for Sam. Including one day when all of a sudden he found himself to be missing a tooth and 2 fingers.

Sam actually walked around with his tooth all day after it came out. (Against the repeated advice of Dad). Sure enough, that evening he lost the tooth somewhere in Corey's yard during an aggressive football game. The good news is that the Tooth Fairy must have found it there because the next day she had left a dollar in the same spot.

Pi

Pete downloaded an app that displays a few thousand digits of Pi. Somehow he and Sam started memorizing Pi and that was the big thing for 3-4 days. They got up to about 40-50 digits at one point. The video below is just Pete reciting some digits in Pi, but there is something else about it (if you watch carefully) that actually makes it one of my favorite Pete/Sam videos ever.

In the interest of equal time, here is a video of Sam doing Pi:

Sam's video has fewer digits, but that's only because I recorded it a day earlier than the Pete video and they were learning about 10-12 extra digits per day.

Halloween 2010

Pete and Sam decided not to wear their costumes to the Monster Mash school dance on Friday, so they got to wear them for the first time on Halloween. It fell on a Sunday night this year, with no school on Monday and Tuesday, so there was even more than the usual amount of sugar-drenched revelry.

Pictured above (l-r) are (I think) Sam, Pete, Corey, Mason, and Pickle.

After taking the above pictures, Pete and Sam walked around the neighborhood where they went door to door convincing people to give them free candy for no reason. This proved to be highly successful, as evidenced by the candy feast they subsequently enjoyed in Mason's garage: